Thursday, October 29, 2020

Jeannie MacDonald Stromgren

Levity

My mother could make me laugh until I cried – and cry until I laughed.

When I was 27, I got a job in Los Angeles, and asked Mom if she would drive across country with me. As the miles drew closer to California, we grew progressively more weepy, dreading the day we would have to say goodbye. Somewhere outside Gallup, Mom was at the wheel and asked me to grab her a snack from our back seat stash.

Ever take a long road trip? Then you won’t be surprised that the back of the car was littered with discarded Dunkin’ cups, maps, muffin wrappers, candy boxes, receipts…you name it.

“Hey Mom, remember in Jaws when they slice open the dead shark’s stomach and pull out tin cans and a Louisiana license plate?” Bleary-eyed from driving, emotional at the thought of parting, the sight of all that trash suddenly struck us as hilarious, and once the laughing jag started, we couldn’t stop. We had to pull off the highway to wipe the tears from our cheeks.

Even when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Mom made me laugh: She said, “The surgeon thinks it started in my Philippian tubes.” During a monthly check-up with her oncologist, Denis Hammond, it looked like he had forgotten to examine her abdomen, so she innocently asked, “Aren’t you gonna feel me up?” If my sister and I had been sipping water at that moment, we would have simultaneously done what’s known in movies as a “spit take.”

On Christmas Eve 2011, Mom landed in the emergency room, where the doctor on call gave her a week to live. The news left us shell-shocked, as we had just lost Dad to ALS in July. Later, Dr. Hammond visited Mom's bedside. She asked, “Is this the end of the trail?” He gently said it probably was. She looked at her three kids, our eyes brimming with tears. Then, she looked back at Dr. Hammond and chirped, “Oh, by the way. Happy Hanukkah!” (Oh, by the way. Mom lived for seven more months.)

I believe laughter is given to us by God so we can bear the vicissitudes of life: pandemics, politics, grief, loss. And like many gifts, we are called to share it.

So when I laugh, I miss my mother. But when I make others laugh, I know she is with me still.